Tuesday, October 3, 2017

What's wrong with guns? Obama flooded the world with them. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama sold more guns than any US president since WWII, prioritized weapons sales as standard component of diplomacy at all levels of government which greatly increased sales-Motherboard Vice, 1/3/17

Most of the arms deals totaling over $200 billion in the
period from 2008 to 2015 have ended up in the Middle East, according to a
Congressional Research Service report
published in December. The report, produced by the non-partisan
government agency attached to the Library of Congress, breaks down the
weapons sold which included surface-to-air missiles, tanks, and
supersonic combat aircraft.Focusing on arms deals to developing
nations, the extensive report found that Saudi Arabia was the top arms
importer with deals worth around $94 billion from 2008-2015. Under Obama
the overall sales, pending delivery of equipment and specialised
training for troops, to Saudi Arabia alone has ballooned to $115 billion.Saudi
Arabia is spearheading a coalition of Arab nations in a bombing
campaign closing in on two years against the insurgent Houthi militias
in Yemen, who took over the capital Sanaa in September 2014. The United
States has sent special operations forces to assist the Arab coalition in a grinding war that has seen over 10000 killed, 2.2 million displaced and nearly half a million children on the brink of famine from the ensuing crisis.Earlier this month, the United States decided to halt future sales of precision-guided munitions,
which are supposed to hit specific targets and minimize collateral
damage, to the Gulf kingdom citing civilian deaths in Yemen. But experts
are skeptical this will deter Saudi Arabia from continuing to fuel its
regional proxy wars.“Frankly it was a really minor and temporary
punishment. I don’t view it as a major consequence and it is more
symbolic than anything,” said Cole Bockenfeld, deputy director of policy
at Project on Middle East Democracy.He pointed to the US partially suspending military
aid to Egypt after the military overthrew the unpopular government in
July 2013 as another example of the lack of political will of the Obama
administration to rock relations with its allies. The Congressional
report, Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations 2008-2015, noted that Egypt was the biggest recipient of arms deliveries last year worth $5.3 billion.Although the highly lucrative global market for arms dipped to around
$80 billion in 2015 compared to $89 billion in 2014, the US still
ranked first in weapons sales with $40 billion in inked deals.“What’s
changed during the Obama administration is that increasing arms sales
has become a standardized component of diplomacy at all levels of
government, not just in the defense department,” Bockenfeld told
Motherboard. “For US diplomats to become the salesmen, that has been a
new element which really increased exports.”Russia remains the
United States’ closest competitor with around 20 percent share of the
market. Its most important client is India, which was the second largest
arms importer behind Saudi Arabia at $34 billion over a period of seven
years, as well as Latin American countries such as Venezuela.Under
Putin, Russia has ramped up its military footprint in the Middle East
by supporting Bashar Al Assad’s regime in Syria, driving the Qatari and
Saudi-backed rebels out of Aleppo earlier this month with multiple civilian casualties. It has been accused of using incendiary weapons such as TOS1A and BETAB-500 that burn their victims and have flattened whole areas of eastern Aleppo.As
the proxy wars between Saudi Arabia and Iran involving Syria and Yemen
continue to devastate the region, there is hardly any sign of
demilitarization. Qatar alone signed deals for more than $17 billion
last year and has vowed to continue supporting the battered rebels, even if president elect Donald Trump pulls back military support for them.Trump
recently lambasted defense firm Lockheed Martin for their $400 billion
F-35 fighter jet program with the Pentagon as ‘out of control’ spending
on Twitter, but Bockenfeld sees no major change in policy from the outgoing Obama administration.“I
do expect US arms exports to increase under Trump,” he said. “I don’t
see the use of arms sales as leverage as very likely in the next
administration.”".....................